Wyldstyle: You found the Piece of Resistance, and the prophecy states that you are the most important, most talented, most interesting, and most extraordinary person, in the universe. That's you, right? Emmet: Uhhh... Yes. That's me.

Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) is your average LEGO construction worker. He lives everyday happy and upbeat, always making sure to follow the instructions. One day, however, he crosses paths with a strange figure by the name of Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks), and ends up with a mysterious LEGO piece stuck to his back. This piece turns out to be the sacred "Piece of Resistance", which "The Special" was foretold to find and save the world with. Unfortunately, this makes Emmet the target of Lord Business (Will Ferrell), the secretly evil ruler of the world who plans to end it using a weapon that can only be stopped by Emmet and the Piece of Resistance. Our hero, however, is in way over his head, and seeks help from the old, wise scatterbrain known as Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), as well as many other "master builders" who have perfected the art of building things with LEGO bricks.

A lot of the film's humor comes from jokes that can be done with LEGO Toys, like the similar LEGO Adaptation Game series (which even has a game based on this film). It's also worth noting that this film is the first to come from Warner Bros. ' Warner Animation Group division. Watch the first trailer here, and the second trailer here.

Adaptation Explanation Extrication: Emmet talking to Lord Business in the finale and convincing him to do a Heel-Face Turn is kept in the Junior Novel and Video Game, but the context for whynote The Man Upstairs making amends with his son after realizing Lord Business is modeled after him isn't. Interestingly, the video game keeps the Plot Twist from the film, but still removes almost everything about The Man Upstairs, instead just having Finn find Emmet, and then abruptly send him back.

Adaptational Wimp: Many of the Master Builders. Superman is restrained with handcuffs. Partly justified, since they're LEGO versions, rather than the actual characters. In and out of universe.

One big one with Bad Cop's parents. They see their son's Good Face wiped off with nail polish remover in front of them. What if your sweet little child, who had so much ahead of him, grew up to become a brutal murderer?

There's also a bit of it with the Man Upstairs realizing his son cast him as a villain. Imagine finding out that you were doing things that were hurting your relationship with your child.

Aerith and Bob: Wyldstyle and Emmet. Subverted, when we find out Wyldstyle's real name is Lucy.

Allegory Adventure: The movie notably toys with this trope. The entire plot of the film is presented In-Universe as a metaphor for Finn's playtime in his dad's study, which explains why the ancient "relics" of human artifacts can appear alongside LEGO bricks. However, Emmet, complete with mental voiceover, is able to consciously move himself in this world, albeit with great difficulty. It's left to the viewer's interpretation whether or not the whole movie took place in Finn's head, or if the world of LEGO is its own universe that Finn and Dad can just manipulate.

Alternate Reality: The LEGO World to the Real World. While the events of the film and actions of the protagonists seem to be heavily influenced by Finn's actions at his father's LEGO set, Emmet still possesses his own thoughts when he falls into the Real World, and even wills himself to move at one point, independent of Finn or his father. The two worlds are separate, but apparently run parallel to each other, with whatever happens in the Real World affecting what happens in the LEGO world.

Emmet gets hit with this when he's transformed into an inanimate LEGO minifig in the real world.

The "Think Tank", which is where Lord Business holds all of the captured Master Builders and plugs them into a computer database that forces them to create new LEGO designs for him.

Quite a literal example when Lord Business removes Good Cop's face with nail polish remover. You can see him put his hands to his face and start trembling like he's in a great amount of pain but can't say anything.

Animated Actors: In an odd variant, the "Behind the Bricks" featurette shows that the characters are not only all acting, they're also all fully aware of the Celebrity Voice Actors that voice them, and of the fact that they are all toys—sort of. It's weird.

Wyldstyle: The whole world is created out of LEGO bricks—or as I like to call them, "bricks"—and populated with LEGO figurines—or as they should be called, "people". Batman: We got two directors Phil and Chris, really, really talented guys. ...Big, though. I mean, they towered over us. Basically freaks. Wyldstyle: They would pick us up, and physically move us across the set! Not cool! I mean, it's not like I'm a prop or something.

Arc Symbol: Hands are frequently shown to coincide the film's themes/aseops such as "one could build anything if one believes they can" (self-respect) and "joining hands" (unity).

Artifact of Doom: The mythic-styled names of several Relics make them this due to the manner in which Lord Business uses them, with the Kragle being the most prominent. The Master Builders really have no countermeasure to most of them. Check Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp" for a list of several.

In the "Behind the Bricks" featurette, Vitruvius talks about how great it is that he's voiced by Morgan Freeman, noting the famous joke that "that man could read the phone book and make it sound interesting." He then proceeds to do just that.

Vitruvius: "Five five five, three four nine two. Mmm. Just listen to that rich molasses."

Wyldstyle: You wanna know why I like Batman? He's dark and brooding. Emmet: Yeah? Well I'm dark and brooding too— (looks out the window) Hey guys, look, a rainbow!

Author Filibuster: Directly invoked in the story itself. When discovering his kid's creations and the climactic confrontation between Emmet and Lord Business, Finn's dad asks him to tell him what Emmet would say to the villain. Cut back to the LEGO world, where Emmet gives his speech asking Business to change his mind.

Awesome but Impractical/Boring but Practical: Tying into Order Versus Chaos, they directly oppose one another in this world. The things made by the Master Builders are very creative but often unstable as each MB does his/her own thing while building; by contrast, the things made by President Business are dull and drab but work perfectly. It represents the difference between Finn's creativity and his dad's perfectionism. When Emmet unlocks his Master Builder powers, the Humongous Mecha he makes out of construction vehicles is Awesome Yet Practical, looking like something off-the-wall that a Master Builder would make but hardy and powerful enough literally smash through a swarm of Micromanagers like a wrecking ball..

Awesomeness by Analysis: Part of Master Builders' skill set. They instinctively know the names and catalog numbers of all LEGO pieces, and how to fit them together to achieve their goals.

Badass Beard: Metal Beard has one made of... well... metal. Appropriate for a character played by Nick Offerman.

Badass Driver: Not only is Wyldstyle good at creating cars/motorcycles, she's also very adept at driving them, if the chase scene is anything to go by.

Be Careful What You Wish For: While Finn is pleased his father will finally be allowed to play with the giant LEGO sets, for the sake of being fair, he will also allow Finn's younger sister to play, too. Cue the Oh, Crap from both Finn and Emmet and company, especially when his sister's creatures appear as a form of Sugar Apocalypse.

The house that Emmet drives through on the freeway. The stairs are too small to accommodate the width of the motorcycle, there shouldn't be enough room on the staircase to let it turn 90 degrees, and the dimensions inside the house are way bigger than the exterior would allow. The movie gets away with it because it all happens in first person POV.

The underseat coolers of the double-decker couch can each fit a whole Master Builder.

Black Cloak: Wyldstyle looks like she's wearing one of these whenever she has her hood up.

Black Dude Dies First: Vitruvius. In fact, he's the only character that dies in the whole movie, not counting the robots. He does come back as a ghost though.

Blah Blah Blah: While Wyldstyle explains to Emmet about the LEGO universe, Emmet ogles at her and quits paying attention to what she's saying, and her words become "Blah blah blah. Proper name. Place name. Backstory stuff..."

The Blank: President Business rubs off Good Cop's face so Bad Cop won't be hindered by his morality. Luckily, Bad Cop later crudely restores it with a marker upon his Heel-Face Turn.

Boarding Party: Metal Beard does this at least once, to get from some clouds to his ship.

Brand X: Everything in Bricksburg is hilariously generic. The name of the city's sports team? Sports Team.

Bread and Circuses: Basically everything in Bricksburg runs on this, most obvious when Emmet seems disturbed by President Business offhandedly mentioned people who oppose him "being put to sleep", sees a clip of Where Are My Pants?, laughs, and forgets what he was talking about.

Emmet initially doesn't believe President Business is a bad guy. After all:

"But he's such a good guy. And Octan... they make good stuff: music, dairy products, coffee, TV shows, surveillance systems, all history books, voting machines (choice between "yes" or "no")—wait a minute.

Break The Fourth Wall: After we see Emmet fall into the great big Hole of Nothingness, the next place he shows is on the concrete floor of someone's basement, in the real world. From there, frozen, Emmet watches as a little kid plays with him and his friends in a rather fantastic style, and we see the entire movie has been the product of this kid's imagination (supplying logic to the weirder plot points of the movie preceding this moment). The movie uses this continuing exchange between animation and live action to give the audience the experience of playing with LEGO.

When outlining his plan to defeat the Kragle, Emmet notices that Vitruvius has added an extra slide showing the Kragle and Emmet exploding. When Emmet protests, Vitruvius responds that there's a small chance that the Kragle might explode upon connecting to the Piece of Resistance. Later, when Lord Business takes the Piece, Emmet jokingly warns that it and the Kragle might explode. Sure enough, it does explode a few seconds after being united... because Lord Business put it back into the machine, which promptly malfunctioned with the capped Kragle.

A more subtle (and literal) one: when Wyldstyle first tells Emmet to try building something, his first instinct is to combine two useless bricks and throw it at the cop cars. Later, during Wyldstyle's rousing speech, a Bricksburg citizen combines two similar pieces with the same enthusiasm as Emmet had earlier.

One of the first things Batman shows off to the party is the Batmobile's sound system. How does he stall Lord Business' Evil Plan? Make them install a sound system.

Built With LEGO: Duh. Not just the solid objects, but things like liquids, smoke, fire, lasers, explosions, and even the motion blur are all made of LEGO pieces. The only things that aren't are the occasional "relics".

But He Sounds Handsome: Part of Emmet's plan near the end is to have Batman crash Lord Business' meeting as his alter ego Bruce Wayne. Batman's response:

Batman: Bruce Wayne? Uh, who's that guy? Sounds like a cool guy!

Butt Monkey: Green Lantern doesn't make many appearances, but is portrayed as a bit of an idiot and being innocently annoying to Superman when he does appear. One can't help but wonder if it's because Warner Bros. is still bitter about his movie underperforming...

Relatively early in the movie, a short slideshow is shown as Emmet has the various LEGO worlds explained to him, and pictures of various LEGO properties are displayed, including several that make no other appearance in the film, such as BIONICLE, LEGO Friends, and the above mentioned Speed Racer's.

Celebrity Paradox: Some minifigs featured in the movie, such as Wyldstyle and Good Cop/Bad Cop, didn't exist prior to this movie being made, as the tie-in toys were made based on this movie. Which means The Man Upstairs bought LEGO sets based on the movie he's in.

Cheek Copy: A pair of mooks try to do this. Unfortunately for them, the copier is actually Metalbeard in disguise.

Where Are My Pants? is an extremely popular television show. Wyldstyle later hijacks a broadcast to show all of Emmet's deeds to get everyone to rally up and to unlock their imagination.

The only idea Emmet ever had before becoming the Special, the double-decker couch, turns out to be a functional escape pod when their submarine is sunk.

Chekhov's Skill: Emmet's talent for convincing motivational speeches, displayed first with the Master Builders and then on Metalbeard's ship, not only inspires Wyldstyle to make one of her own but also serves as Lord/President Business's motivation for his Heel-Face Turn.

Child Prodigy: Finn, to a great extent. He not only has complete control over the LEGO world — albeit unknowingly — but has managed to turn an ordinary cardboard tube into a fully functioning portal between the two worlds. Plus, the many LEGO creations he's made are on the level of professional LEGO builders. And he's only eight and a half. Kid's got talent.

The Chosen Many: Emmet ultimately tells Lord Business that he's also the Special because he has the creative potential to change the world for the better. This also happens to all the regular minifigs throughout all the realms after Lucy has her epiphany and mobilizes them against Lord Business. The skies are filled to the brim with their off-the-wall constructions too weird even for Master Builders to have made, all putting up a spirited fight against the Micromanagers.

The Chosen One: Emmet is mistaken as this, known as "The Special". The reality is that he is this—not because of the prophecy (which was made up to begin with), but because he found the Plot Device that could stop the Kragle.

Contrived Coincidence: Twice. The first time, when stranded in the ocean, Batman claims there's no chance of a rescue ship approaching just as Metalbeard's ship arrives. The second time, they need to build an Octan jet, to which Batman says there's no way they'll get access to a working hyperdrive. Cue the Millennium Falcon coming in.

Batman: Are you kidding me, the same bit?!

Control Freak: President Business. Not only has he separated everything to be exactly perfectly organized, he plans to superglue everything together. Finn's dad is also this by extension, since President Business is Finn's representation of him.

Cool Airship: A ship of this type is commandeered by Metal Beard during the course of the film.

Covers Always Lie: On the main poster (above) also the Blu-Ray cover, it shows all the main heroes charging into battle. Including Wonder Woman (barely has any lines), Green Lantern (the Butt Monkey in the very few scenes that he's in) and Lloyd from Lego Ninjago (has no lines at all and is just a background character).

Once you get past the bright colors and general cheeriness of the LEGO world, you start to realize that there's a lot of posters/screens emphasizing obeying President Business, as well as the surprising suppression of creativity.

Crazy Cat Lady: Mrs. Scratchen-Post, who owns over a dozen cats, all with different names. At the climax of the film, she builds a giant sled pulled by them.

Creative Closing Credits: The end credits are full-on LEGO stop-motion, with the credits themselves written on Dymo labels. You can watch them and read an in-depth article on their creation here.

Crippling Overspecialization: Master Builders tend to only build things that reflect their own particular idioms—Benny's only good with 80s technology, Batman only works in black (and very dark grey), and Uni-Kitty has to stick rainbows onto everything. This makes for chaos whenever they try to work together.

Dissonant Serenity: In Emmet's instructions to "fit in, have everybody like you, and always be happy", the last step is represented by an image of a happy minifigure being eaten by a shark.

Distracted by the Sexy: On the construction site, Emmet is about to report Wyldstyle, when she takes off her hood. And while in the Old West Wyldstyle explains to Emmet about the many worlds of the LEGO universe. Unfortunately, Emmet quickly stops paying attention in favor of ogling her, parodied by her words shifting from exposition to "blah blah blah, I'm so pretty..."

After The Reveal, the movie can be seen as a satire on the current state of Hollywood. "The Man Upstairs" is so convinced that he's built the perfect LEGO world that he refuses to let his son express his creativity by building new things and letting new characters flourish. Finn ultimately wins him over by showing him how fun it really is to experiment and try new things.

The real world segment seems awfully similar to an episode of Adventure Time, in which the main character whose name is also Finn, obtains magical toys of all his friends, unknownst to him he was actually manipulating an alternate reality where these toys lived as real people and he was pretty much an invisible deity.

Do Not Spoil This Ending: A TV spot for the movie says "Don't miss [the movie], and don't give away the ending." Especially the part where it's revealed that the Lego universe is actually the creation of the real world and the story is just part of a kid's imagination as he plays.

The Dung Ages: Vitruvius begins his description of Middle Zealand by listing standard Medieval European Fantasy tropes (such as knights and castles), but then includes some of the nastier elements of the real middle ages, such as leeches.

Early-Bird Cameo: A Milhouse minifigure appears alongside the rest of the master builders, despite the set not being released until later in 2014.

Earth All Along: Sort of. The "Kragle", Lord Business's unstoppable weapon, is "Krazyglue" with letters missing. The thing is, the entire LEGO world is a literal construct of Finn, a young boy, who is caught playing with his father's LEGO buildings. Thus the entire film is a metaphor for the clash between their play styles (Unless of course the Lego world is an alternate reality, though the underlying message still applies).

Or alternately, Earth influences the LEGO World to the Real World but the LEGO World can do the same to Earth. Since while the protagonists seem to be heavily influenced by Finn's actions at his father's LEGO set, Emmet still possessed a consciousness and was even able to move independently of Finn or his father.

Easily Forgiven: President/Lord Business, who is turned with a single speech from Emmet. Possibly justified, since he's based on Finn's father.

Eleventh Hour Superpower: After his brush with Finn and The Man Upstairs, Emmet becomes a Master Builder, acquires the Awesomeness by Analysis on the identity of every brick he lays eyes on (like with WyldStyle and the super-motorcycle), and throws together a Humongous Mecha out of construction machines in seconds flat, and begins smashing up Micro-managers.

Eleventy Zillion: Captain Metalbeard says that Lord Business's office is on "the infinitieth floor" of the Octan Tower.

Elite Mooks: The Micromanagers are much more competent than Skeletrons and actually get the heroes in tight spots many times.

The Evils of Free Will: President Business seems to be out to stop his citizens from having individual thoughts. Those who do and don't stop are tracked down by his secret police or taken to "melting rooms".

Executive Meddling: In the DVD short "Enter the Ninjago", the in-universe film adapting the events of the movie has the Green Ninja suddenly come in just as Emmett was contemplating heroic action. Emmet convinces the corporate stooge pushing for the meddling to just make a stand-alone Ninjago movie that is demographic-pandering to the extreme, which then tanks so hard that it makes all of Hollywood fold.

Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Bad Cop lets slip President Business's evil plan, Emmet is skeptical, and proceeds to list all the cool stuff Octan makes. When he gets to the surveillance cameras, history books and voting machines (with only one option), however, he suddenly realizes that the evil plan isn't so crazy....

Near the very beginning of the film, during the establishing shots of the city, look at the Lord Business billboards in the background; phrases such as "President because he says so" and "What part of 'No' do you not understand?" can be seen on them. This would indicate that Finn and his father have had LEGO-based disputes before.

Noticed the rubber-band and lollipop wand Vitruvius has? Those, along with the "relics" Lord Business collects, suggests that the LEGO World takes place somewhere very close to us humans.

The first time in the film Taco Tuesday is mentioned, Lord Business says all the citizens will receive "a free taco, and my undying love!" At the end of the movie, Finn gets both from his father.

When they enter Emmet's mind, Vitruvius mentions "The Man Upstairs" and Emmet thinks of a construction of him, shaped like a giant human hand.

Take a close look at Lord Business' cape. It's a red tie, just like the one Finn's dad wears.

Several sound effects, such as the noise of a plane taking off, are made up of mouth voice. You'd think it's just Played for Laughs until it is revealed that the entire movie is set within a real-life kid's imagination while playing with his father's LEGO set effecting a whole 'nother world. This is further elaborated upon when Vitruvius is a ghost; he is obviously covered with a LEGO blanket piece to make him look like a ghost, and he is obviously dangling by a string.

Two things pointing out that Emmet is just viewed as a rather bland fellow by the others: firstly, the people that he speaks to on his way to work never actually refer to him by name, instead using various forms of 'you'. And secondly, Emmet is never in line when he's walking with the other construction workers.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is one giant foreshadow. Everything shown within that world, including all the mishmashed types of Master Builders that gathered and the Uni-Kitty's speech about rules, implies that there was a reason it was different from the other, more ordered, parts of the world - a reason which necessitated its complete removal from the universe.

Emmet's encouraging of the Master Builders to work together, and their difficulty in doing so at first. It's difficult to get different mindsets to meet in the middle, after all.

When Emmet touches the Piece of Resistance, he falls unconscious and is treated to a vision. A flash of the vision briefly shows Finn's covered face and hand, a silhouetted man opening a door, and a cat poster. Finn's voice can be heard telling him that it's his turn to be the hero. He also sees the Believe cat poster. Also during Emmett's vision, there's a shot of Emmet falling down a long, multicoloured tunnel.

Everything Is Awesome. The lyrics are one giant spoiler for the movie and the ending!

More subtle, when Batman and Emmet are discussing the plan:

Emmet: Batman, when we get into this room there are gonna be audio sensors everywhere. We can't make a sound. Batman: Don't worry, Dad, I read your dumb instructions. Stop yelling at me!

One not connected to The Reveal: the compartments in the double decker couch used to hide our heroes are just like the smuggling panels in the Millennium Falcon.

When the film's logo is being built, a cat can be seen in the first few seconds standing on a few LEGO blocks.

A background minifigure in the coffee shop wears a Fabuland shirt – a theme that was discontinued 24 years ago. Another wears the stylized "B" logo used in the second-series Blacktron sets. Fabuland also shows up in the "Other Lands" section of Wyldstyle's Info Dump.

Road signs point to Paradisa, Heartlake City (from LEGO Friends) and Century Skyway (an airport set from 1994).

The old timey time board in the Wild West scene has "Copyrighted by Octan on it."

When Vitruvius is introducing his fellow Master Builders, pause when he introduces the Mermaid. One of the Master Builders in the background is Johnny Thunder.

Several themes are lumped into the "other lands" category and flash by briefly during Vitruvius' earlier info dump, including Mata Nui.

When one of the pigs falls off the broken railroad bridge, it turns into sausages when it lands.

During the meeting of the Master Builders at The Dog, the tracking device on Emmet's leg can be seen in a few shots.

When Emmet touches the Piece of Resistance, he falls unconscious and a flash of the vision briefly shows a silhouetted human man opening a door.

Blink and you'll miss it: When Vitruvius and Wyldstyle are entering Emmet's mind, quickly pause at the bright flashing lights to see Wyldstyle's, Emmet's and Vitruvius's heads interchange with one another.

When Metalbeard transforms into a singing robot on the ship, look closely when it cuts to Emmet to see Unikitty's face of disgust.

During Wyldstyle's backstory Info Dump, she mentions that all the realms were connected and people could build whatever they wanted. This is represented by two minifigs of Cleopatra and a wind-up robot building something, before Lord Business' walls separate them. Fast forward to the end, after Lord Business completes his Heel-Face Turn and the realms are saved, and you can see Cleopatra and the wind-up robot dancing off to one side of the heroes.

When The Man Upstairs is Kragle-ing everything, one of the things he does is Kragle a pair of pants onto the actor from Where Are My Pants?

Among the other worlds we see when Benny finally builds his spaceship is an outer-space one with two astronauts that just happen to have no-gleam eyes like Emmet and Benny. Which may raise some implications.

Another blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment: during the fight scene in the melting chamber, quickly pause when Wyldstyle hits a table. You'll find a "Melting Room Schedule" that includes events such as an "orange juice break" and "Frank's Birthday Party," as well as the notes "Don't forget to clean the laser!" and "How about YOU clean it?"

During any scenes where a character is moving around quickly (e.g. the scenes when Wyldstyle build the motorcycle in the alleyway and Benny rapidly builds his spaceship), at certain times the characters get motion-blurred into plain LEGO bricks, in a creative use of a smear. Some good examples can be seen here [1].

From Nobody to Nightmare: Both Emmet and Lord Business started off completely un-special. Lord Business handled it by becoming a tyrant, while Emmet went the hero's route. Later, all the citizens of Bricksburg put their long-dormant creativity to use and built incredible machines to defend their town.

Fun with Acronyms: There's also the TAKOSnote Tentacle Arm Kragle Outside Sprayer. The 'S' is silent.

After Lord Business threatens Bad Cop with the Band-Aid, he hands it off to two of his mooks and continues talking. They...have a bit of trouble handling it from there.

While riding into the Old West town, there is a miner hot tubbing in the water tower. As he takes a drink from his glass, around him bubbles come to the surface of the water. He then nervously looks around to see if anybody notices.

While Wyldstyle is talking to Vitruvius in the saloon, Emmet is seen interacting with things in the background. He even takes a sip of alcohol and gags.

When the team is driving up the rainbow to Cloud Cuckooland, two knights can be seen jousting, with one completely skewering the other.

When Batman tells Wyldstyle "He's the hero you deserve", gesturing to Emmet, Emmet looks around to see if Batman is gesturing to someone behind him, whilst in the background, Benny also looks around to see if he's referring to someone else.

During Bad Cop's interrogation of Emmet, one of the robots who's supposed to be watching the interrogation is instead playing Solitaire on his computer.

Genre Shift: In the last half hour or so, the movie shifts from a dramatization of a child's playtime with his dad's LEGO to a parental bonding story.

For instance, a character gets decapitated and his severed head is shown on-screen for nearly a minute, but it's neither squicky, gory, nor anything inappropriate.

Michelangelo (the artist) has brought a white statue with him to the assembly of Master Builders, the statue of David. Like the real statue it's nude, but unlike the real statue it's a Lego minifigure with nothing to censor.

In the Behind the Bricks featurette, President Business moans about why they got Will Ferrell to voice him, then starts doing imitations of famous actors who he wanted to voice him. At one point he mentions Ryan Gosling, then takes off his shirt to reveal a six-pack, raises his eyebrow and a wolf-whistle sound plays.

Near the beginning, when talking about getting something to eat, a male construction worker says he likes giant sausages. The fact it's a stereotype that many construction workers are gay, there is no way this was a coincidence.

Metalbeard's story finishes with him escaping with nothing but his head (and sundry organs); represented in-thank Heaven-silhouette by a long rope and a few specks. Obviously his intestines and all them pod-shaped insides.

Wyldstyle refers to this in the "Behind the Bricks" trailer when she's talking about her voice actress Elizabeth Banks, and how she's such a good role model for girls. Elizabeth Banks, not herself.

Uni-Kitty is another example. She's a princess, but she doesn't have a love interest. When she sees what's left of Cloud Cuckooland, she tries her best to stay calm. And during the climax, she uses her full power to save Emmet from Micro Managers.

When losing the heroes, Bad Cop swears up a storm of: "Darn, darn, darn, darny-darn!". It's even more hilarious as this is Liam Neeson saying this.

When arriving in the Old West, Emmet exclaims: "O-M-G-O-S-H!"

Batman drops a "What. The. Heck." late into the movie.

A Micromanager's reaction to Emmet's construction mech: "What the heck is this?"

Go Ye Heroes, Go and Die: Emmet's speech about how he isn't qualified to save the world ends up horrifying the crowd he's supposed to inspire. Ironically, he was trying to invoke this trope to follow it up with a heroic statement; they just left before he got to execute that last part.

The Guards Must Be Crazy: Emmet and Wyldstyle don't make very convincing robots in their tin foil disguises, coming very close to being caught. When Emmet breaks into "Everything is Awesome!", however, the robots join in and completely ignore them.

Robot Guard 1: This is my jam!

Robot Guard 2: This is also my jam!

Hair Flip: Parodied with Wyldstyle in her introduction. Since her hair is one solid piece, it merely rotates on her head.

Hair Reboot: This is how Emmet "combs his hair" in the morning, his "bed head" LEGO hair piece is replaced with his normal hair when he waves a brush near it.

Hammerspace: For all characters, particularly Batman's batarangs. There's also the scene where Benny squeezes into a barrel that's clearly too small for him. And of course, the compartments under the Double-Decker Couch cushions somehow fit all six who hide in it. Metalbeard apparently crammed most of his volume into it when he transformed into a photocopier, and apparently had the bricks for said copier in the Hammerspace beforehand.

Happiness Is Mandatory: Implied with some of the billboards scattered around the city, as well as the instruction manual. It even juxtaposes the words "How to [...] always be happy" with a picture of a smiling guy being eaten by a shark.

Headphones Equal Isolation: When Wyldstyle gives her broadcast to the LEGO citizens as the Kragle wreaks havoc, a headphones-wearing guy strides by in the foreground, oblivious to the attack. He is then promptly Kragled.

Heel-Face Turn: Let's just say pretty much every "villain" in the film from Lord/President/Dad Business to Bad Cop/Good Cop gets a turn around by the end. Bad Cop/Good Cop's is literal in a bizarre way.

Heel Realization: Lord/President Business has one upon Emmet's speech — and more importantly, Dad has one when he sees that Finn modeled Lord/President Business after him and realizes that he's seriously losing his son's respect.

Emmet loses his hard hat near the beginning just before he gets chosen to be the special. The evil Lord Business notably has an enormous one which he loses in the lead up to his Heel Face Turn.

At the same time, what would Benny the "1980-something space guy" be without that cracked space helmet?

Here We Go Again: At the end, as Emmet celebrates with his friends, alien Duplo beings beam down and announce their plans to destroy the universe, thanks to Finn's father allowing the boy's younger sister to join them in playing with his Lego sets.

Heroic BSOD: Twice in the film — when Emmet first realizes how the rest of the world views him as just an NPC without any identifying characteristics thus initiating the plot of the film and at the end when he thinks he's not The Chosen One.

Heroic Sacrifice: After recovering from his second Heroic BSOD, Emmet throws himself out of Lord Business' tower, taking the 9-volt battery that powers the Think Tank's self-destruct mechanism with him.

The Hero's Journey: What Emmet's story is. Particularly, his final confrontation with Lord Business, which itself mirrors Finn's confrontation with his dad, has some heavy "Atonement With The Father" vibes.

Heroic Willpower: Emmet wills himself to move while trapped in the real world as an inanimate LEGO figure.

Holy Backlight: The Man Upstairs makes his appearance this way, as he comes down the stairs.

Humans Are Cthulhu: The only glimpse we get of humans are various artifacts kept by Lord Business such as the Kragle (Krazy Glue) and the Cloak of Ban'Daeed (a Band-Aid). Vitruvius earlier makes reference to "The Man Upstairs", who is seemingly the god of the LEGO universe. Then Emmet himself personally encounters his builders after falling out of the LEGO world, which turn out to be a human kid named Finn and his father.

invokedIdiot Plot: In-universe; the show Where Are My Pants revolves around one joke: a man can't find his pants. When hijacking the show's camera to make an announcement, Wyldstyle throws him a pair, saying: "Found your pants! Series is over!"

Imagination-Based Superpower: The power of a Master Builder essentially boils down to being able to instinctively construct whatever they want from whatever materials they can get their hands on (and in super speed).

Incredibly Obvious Bug: Parodied—despite it being a standard stud (so bigger than a character's hand) and blinking, no one notices the tracking device on Emmet's leg until it becomes a plot point. Could be justifed, since with Lego parts form does not imply function.

Industrialized Evil: What Lord Business does to captured Master Builders is chain them up, plug into their brains, and use their creative minds to write the instruction manuals for all the ordinary civilian builders.

I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Superman avoids Green Lantern by telling him he "needs to go visit Krypton", and flies off right as Green Lantern recalls that Krypton was destroyed....

The Prophecy, originally describing The Special as "the most important, most talented, most interesting, and most extraordinary person in the universe," is used by Emmet and presumably Finn to describe Lord Business, AKA "The Man Upstairs", and is instrumental in his Heel-Face Turn.

Inverted by the end of the movie: the opening song, "Everything is Awesome," begins as an ode to conformity, i.e., everything is awesome so don't question anything. The song becomes irony-free by the end of the movie.

Killer Rabbit: Uni-Kitty has a dark side buried underneath her cute demeanor (as revealed in her introduction to Cloud Cuckoo Land) ... which becomes a Chekhov's Gun in the film's climax when she turns it loose on Lord Business's Micro-Managers.

Leitmotif: One segment seems to follow Emmet around, including but not limited to, here,here,, and here, even here. An over-the-top "falling in love" theme plays whenever Emmet is distracted by Wyldstyle.

Lemming Cops: Parodied. After Wyld Style and Emmet make their escape from Bricksburg, the pursuing cop cars crash into the closed tunnel, followed by several which literally fly into the wall and a helicopter which drops out of the sky for no reason, before the whole pile bursts into flames.

Loads and Loads of Characters: "Including, but not limited to, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, 1980s-something Space Guy..." Of course, most of these are popular culture references and/or one-scene wonders, but there's still quite a few of them.

Logo Joke: The Warner Bros, Warner Animation Group and Village Roadshow logos are displayed in LEGO form and hung on strings.

Losing Your Head: Metalbeard survived the first assault on Lord Business's tower with just his head. Sadly, it was different for Vitruvius, who could only speak a few words before dying after being beheaded by a penny.

Lovecraft Lite: No matter what, the heroes are always controlled by Finn and "The Man Upstairs," and even the final exchange between Emmet and Lord Business is meant to mirror Finn talking with his father. Luckily, "The Man Upstairs" is an Obliviously Evilordinary human, and Finn manages to reason with him.

Lyrical Dissonance: "Everything is Awesome" is essentially the national anthem of a conformist dystopia. However, in the end, it also helps inspire the people of the LEGO realms to find their own unique creativity.

MacGyvering: The key skill of the Master Builders; they have the imagination to make anything out of the pieces around them.

Made of Explodium: Anything that either crashes or falls will tend to explode (into LEGO flames, of course). At one point, even horses explode. Justified when it turns out to be a child's imaginary playtime, and he is using the Rule of Cool.

Magic Realism: It's never really explained why Emmet's still semi-sentient in the real world, despite the whole film being Finn playing with a LEGO set. One interpretation is it's a Calvin and Hobbes-like merging of different viewpoints of reality—so Emmet's not totally imaginary, he just is as far as The Man Upstairs is concerned. Alternatively, one could think of it as a Toy Story-type situation: even though the toys aren't moving, they ''feel'' alivebecause that's how the child sees them. Or, there are literally two separate worlds that run parallel to each other, with whatever happens in one world affecting what happens in the other.

Magical Negro: Vitruvius the wizard, who is the only brown-skinned non-licensed character in the movie (and in LEGO history).

Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Wyldstyle, to an extent, though it can be argued that Emmet is a Stable Regular Dream Guy for her...

The Man Is Sticking It to the Man: The film heavily satirizes consumerist and conformist culture, but is produced by the LEGO company and contains the brand names of many franchises. This is lampshaded by one of the directors in this interview:

Chris Miller: It's an anti-corporate movie that's all about a huge corporation, and that's a funny synthesis.

Mean Character, Nice Actor: In-Universesubversion. In the Behind the Bricks featurette, the characters are shown to roughly resemble their own actors—Batman is every bit as egomaniacal as he is in the movie, and Lord Business says that his on-set "pranks" were actual attempts to kill his co-stars.

Wyldstyle: Today will not be known as Taco Tuesday. Today will be known as Freedom Friday! *beat* But still on a Tuesday!

Earlier, when Batman appears to desert the team, Emmet ruins his chance for an easy pun.

Emmet: Wyldstyle, you're such an amazing person. And if Batman can't see that then he's just as blind as... someone... whose eyes... stopped working.

Mickey Mousing: On close-ups of Emmet in the cockpit of his Humongous Mecha during the climactic last act, the rocking from the mecha's footsteps is in time with the beat of his leitmotif's triumphant reprise.

Mini-Mecha: Metalbeard, who is a pirate head on an amalgamation of pirate ship parts (and a shark).

Moment Killer: Emmet and Wyldstyle come this close to holding hands several times, but are interrupted by her boyfriend, Batman.

Mundane Made Awesome/Mundane Object Amazement: Several commonplace items that can be found at home (such as glue, a band-aid, a penny, and a Q-tip) are treated as relics in the LEGO world, and some are even used as potentially threatening weapons.

Mundane Utility: Lord Business uses the Kragle, a universe-destroying superweapon, to render his vehicles indestructible.

It's easy to miss. Emmet's look from the submarine window during Cloud Cuckoo Land's destruction suggests this being that it was the tracking device that doomed it. He comforts Uni-Kitty because he doesn't know what else to do.

Some of the realms of "the universe" mentioned by Wyldstyle during her exposition speech are named after themed areas at the LEGOLAND parks.

Naked People Are Funny: Emmet at the start of the film. It turns out that his entire body is standard LEGO yellow.

Also true in-universe, as Where Are My Pants? is an extremely popular sitcom.

NameTron: Many of the robot characters: Executron, Deputron, and the skeletrons. Others have the word 'bot' or 'drone' fitted in their names somewhere.

Narm: Invoked. You'll never look at Lord Business the same way again once you realize his gigantic evil helmet has coffee cups on top of its horns.

Nested Story Reveal: After Emmett falls down from Lord Businesses' headquarters, he finds himself in the real world, and we learn the whole story is made up by a kid playing with his dad's Legos. Though it's still implied that it might not all be just the kid's imagination, as Emmett manages to move himself in the real world too.

Never Live It Down: In-universe. Emmet isn't particularly happy with having to hear again and again - from everyone on both sides of the conflict - how his one creative idea, the double-decker couch, is terrible.

Never Trust a Trailer: A lot of lines spoken in the trailer appear in completely different scenes than how they're shown. Some lines in the trailers aren't in the movie at all.

Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: In an awesome example, Metal Beard. He's a steampunk cyborg pirate Man in the Machine crossed with a Mini-Mecha, combining the gruff-and-tough personality of the former and copious weaponry of the latter. In a weird sort of shout out to an unrelated famous Japanese commercial, he can also turn into a copy machine. Basically the guiding principle for him seems to be Rule of Cool.

Ninja Prop: When we first see the Wild West area, the name of the place is shown on a wide-view of the area, and shortly thereafter Emmet asks why there are words floating up in the sky.

No Knees: Because LEGO minifigures don't have them, none of the characters in this movie have them.

The Nondescript: Emmet has the standard LEGO smiling face, when not emoting. His photo is a 100% facial match to everybody.

No Problem with Licensed Games: As to be expected, as the movie got its own Lego Adaptation Game in The Lego Movie Videogame. Due to the movie it's based on, it's the first Lego Adaptation Game to have nearly all of its levels appear as if constructed by Lego, rather than limiting it to just the bonus level (ironically its bonus level is Lego in a realistic environment like the normal levels in the other games). Rather than being a comedic parody of the movie, however, it's a more straight-faced adaptation that adopts the tone and approach of the movie with open arms. This makes it one of the funniest entries in the series with plenty of original gag material, such as Vitruvius' special skill being able to cross thin planks over dangerous caverns purely because he's blind and oblivious to the fact that he could be killed:

Ranch Owner: Hey mister! Get out of that paddock!

Vitrivius (in the paddock with a mad bucking horse): I wonder who that man is shouting at? It can't possibly be me. I feel perfectly safe.

Not So Different: Lord Business and Emmet both reveal that nobody had even called them special or made them feel important. And it's actually the hero that invokes this on the villain here, when Emmet tells Lord Business that he can also be creative and special.

After the above page quote, Wyldstyle tells Emmet: "Good. You drive." Meaning her high-speed motorcycle currently being chased by the cops. Emmet understandably freaks out.

Wyldstyle has this reaction when she realizes Emmet is not the rebel she was expecting, but a completely nondescript follower.

When Finn is told that - since his dad is more permissive about him playing with the LEGO sets - his sister will also get free rein. Subsequently, this also occurs when his sister's Duplo creations land in the LEGO world.

Duplo:(toddler girl voice) We are from the planet Duplo, and we are here to destroy you.

Emmet: Oh, man.

Shaq and the others when they find out that their weapons are useless against the Kragle-reinforced police ships.

Parodied in the ocean sequence. Listen closely, the choir shouts "Lego, under the sea, or yo-ho" in tune to the theme of the location. Even one part of the soundtrack shouts, "seeeee allll the Leeegggoooo."

Ominous chanting also occurs during a Mundane Made Awesome moment: Finn's father tearing apart his son's creations and destroying the people's rebellion.

One Steve Limit: Averted for laughs with the Michelangelos (the artist and the Ninja Turtle). Bonus points in that the artist is pronounced "Mickel-angelo" while the Ninja Turtle is pronounced "Michael-angelo".

Only Six Faces: While trying to hunt Emmet down, a facial-recognition search returns hits on the entire population.

Emmet:(singing) "Everything is awesome!" Wyldstyle: I am not singing this... (The Robots award her a Death Glare)Wyldstyle:(singing) "Everything is awesome!"note The funniest part is that despite claiming afterward to absolutely hate the song, she sings it better than anyone in the film.

Orange/Blue Contrast: This is true of both the movie's poster and its main character. It fares better than most examples though, as the range of blue and orange is very broad and the colors are overall very vibrant — much as they are on the toys themselves.

Order Versus Chaos: Lord Business is all order ('Use the Instructions'), the Master Builders are all chaos ('Just be Creative'), and Emmet is somewhere in between.

In the broader sense, Lord Business wanting to glue everything together (representing Finn's Dad) is 'Total Order' and Emmet and the Master Builders being Creative (representing Finn) are more in the middle, and going by the Stinger, the aliens that just want to destroy everything (representing Finn's younger sister) are 'Total Chaos'.

Paper-Thin Disguise: To infiltrate Lord Business' headquarters, they doodle glasses and dollar signs on Uni-Kitty, and Emmet and Wyldstyle wrap themselves in tin-foil.

Parental Bonus: Those parents who used to be (or may still be) Legomaniacs will get a kick out of Bennynote Particularly the plastic chin of the helmet, which was notoriously easy to crack in half, as well as the blink-and-you-miss-them references to Blacktron and Fabuland, two product lines from The Eighties.

Photo Doodle Recognition: The citizens of the Wild West town don't recognize Emmet. However, one Mecha-Mook asks the hunter to draw a sombrero on the picture, at which point he confirms that the stranger that rolls into town was, in fact, Emmet.

Plot Twist: Quite a bigger one than you would expect from this movie, so much so that the post-premiere commercials stress that you should not reveal the ending: The entire movie was quite possibly, the construct of a young boy's imagination as he played with his father's ridiculously large LEGO set that he built exactly according to the instructions. The conflict between Emmet and Lord Business is a metaphor for the boy's troubled relationship with his father; he just wants to be creative, while his dad wants to build everything precisely.

Pop-Star Composer: Mark Mothersbaugh, although he's a bit of a borderline example; most famous as a lead member of Devo, he's worked on everything from TV shows and video games before as well as movies.

Product Placement: Besides the obvious, there's Band-Aids, Q-tips, Krazy Glue, etc. Unlike most examples of the trope, rather than being irrelevant to the movie, the products are actually integral to the plot.

Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: How else would a construction worker, a car mechanic/action heroine, a washed-up wizard, a magical cat/unicorn, a cyborg pirate, a retro space guy, and Batman have anything in common?

Metalbeard's 'hearty crew' also counts. Apart from Metalbeard himself and two actual pirates, there's The Flash, a magician, a Disco Dan, Speed Racer, a witch, a mime, some guy with a monkey, a Gorgon, and Michaelangelo (who survived!)

Reality Warper: Very downplayed, but Master Builders like Wyldstyle can build a functioning motorcycle out of building parts and random junk found in an alleyway. Justified, since after all, everything is literallyBuilt With LEGO.

Ridiculously Fast Construction: Master Builders build things really fast. Batman defeats Bad Cop's flyer by rearranging it mid-air to a baby carriage. Wyldstyle builds so fast she can build a car in the middle of a chase sequence while she's running through a barn, or rebuild a motorcycle into a jet while it's still rolling. Even newbie builder Emmett gains this ability by the end of the film.

Benny, when he finally gets to build his beloved SPACESHIP!, rips the TV studio apart so fast, he's a barely visible, insanely giggling blur as the pieces flurry together almost of their own accord.

Robo Cam: The Master Builders can look at the world around them and instantly identify LEGO pieces by their part numbers.

Batman tries to initiate this thrice. The first two times, he's persuaded by Wyldstyle to stay with them, but the third time has him leap aboard the Millennium Falcon. Wyldstyle gives him a moment of What the Hell, Hero? when he gets onto it. However, it turns out that he didn't really intend to leave- he had taken the opportunity to steal the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive for Emmet's plan.

Metalbeard ditches the Master Builder convention after Emmet's Rousing Speech fails to actually do any rousing.

The new villains that show up at the end are made of Lego Duplo Bricks, a brand of toddler based Lego that many Lego fans openly despise

In the "Behind the Bricks" featurette, each of the characters gush about their actors, while President Business laments that he had to be stuck with Will Ferrell, and Batman seems a little annoyed that he is being played by Will Arnett rather than George Clooney.

President Business: When you're scraping the bottom of a barrel, you find yourself with a Will Ferrell.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Vitruvius even states at the beginning "All this is true because it rhymes". Bonus points for it having been made up on the spot.

The coffee shop that Emmet goes to is named "The Coffee Chain". Generic and/or tautological names for things seems to be the theme for a lot of objects in Bricksburg...

Likewise, posters on the wall of Emmet's apartment say things like "A Popular Band" and "Sport!"

Shirtless Scene: In a behind the scenes feature, President Business listed other people who could have voiced him, including Ryan Gosling. Just at that moment, Business had his shirt off and had a ripped torso. In the actual movie, Emmet has a shirtless scene during his morning routine.

Shown Their Work: Plenty, in fact. The directors and animators really took advantage of the wide world of LEGO when making this film.

Benny, also known as the "1980-something Space Guy", is the Classic Blue Astronaut figure— and much like his figurines from the 1980s, the bottom part of his helmet is cracked and his space emblem is worn.

All the sets and backgrounds are actually made of LEGO (albeit CG). Even more impressive is that it was all initially built using Lego's own Lego Set designing program, which means that everything could actually be physically built assuming you had the necessary pieces.

Keeping with the designs of the LEGO minifigs, none of the characters are able to move their elbows, rotate their upper body right or left, or rotate their heads up and down. A BIT of creative licensing is used since their arms can rotate outward somewhat, for elaborate acting, but it's used sparingly.

Emmet drives a (slightly modified) 3177 Small Car, a real set from 2011.

You can see mold lines, casting imperfections and other "real-world" characteristics on the CGI minifigs. And when the lighting allows it, you can even see fingerprint residue on the minifigs' torsos that Finn would have left from playing with them IRL.

Any time the audience is shown "Master Builder vision", each LEGO brick highlighted is accompanied by its actual design (part) ID code.

Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Trailer: As late as a month before the film's premier, Uni-Kitty barely appeared in trailers and only had one word of dialogue in a TV spot.note That word is "Embarrassing!" Even Johnny Thunder, who has appeared only as a Freeze-Frame Bonus, has gotten more cumulative trailer screentime than Uni-Kitty. This is despite the fact that she features prominently in the tie-in toys and is one of the main supporting characters alongside the likes of Batman, Benny, and MetalBeard.

Skele Bot 9000: The "skeletron" style of henchmen featured in the movie.

Small Name, Big Ego: In the Behind the Bricks featurette, Emmet's "actor" claims that "there were a lot of big egos on set", and he is shown to be right. Batman not only claims to be the main character, he claims he is the main character in every single movie he is ever innote To be fair, most of the movies Batman has been in actually are Batman movies.. Likewise, Bad Cop/Good Cop also thinks he is the main character (both sides of him argue with each other that they are the lead). President Business, meanwhile, thinks he deserves to be voiced by an acting legend like Robert De Niro and is upset that the studio is "scraping the barrel" by casting Will Ferrell instead. Emmet and Wyldstyle's LEGO actors both gush about their voice actors—meaning, of course, that Chris Pratt and Elizabeth Banks are basically gushing about themselves.

Solid Clouds: The Master Builder's assembly hall in Cloud Cuckoo Land seem to be built on these.

Soundtrack Dissonance: Touches of it during the "Everything Is Awesome" at the construction sequence. As everyone cheerfully sing the song, a rather menacing billboard of President Business passes by and a surveillance camera watches intently.

Invoked when Vitruvius comes back as a ghost. He is literally just a ghost minifigure being dangled on a string. This is actually a plot point, given that it foreshadows the existence of regular Earth. Similarly invoked with the sound effects of some ships flying/sailing away.

Deliberately invoked in the movies entire faux-stop-motion style. Due to the sheer size of the movie it couldn't actually be done in stop-motion, but little imperfections are added throughout to capture the feel, such as being in a deliberately slower framerate which is most obvious when switching between the live-action scenes and the Lego scenes near the end.

And just before the climactic battle, the talking cat poster speaks in a lazily animated mouth not unlike a bad Flash animation.

Stealth Hi/Bye: As in non-LEGO movies, this is Batman's trademark move.

Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Vitruvius and Emmet think that Wyldstyle sounds like the name of a DJ, and Wyldstyle lampshades that they both said it. Similarly, everybody thinks the double-decker couch is a stupid idea and will go at great lengths to harp on it. Lord Business also compares it to a bunk bed like Emmet did when he was explaining it.

There are a few instances, most notably Vitruvius as a ghost, which is literally a figurine with a ghost blanket piece on a string, and the separation of Lord Business's fortress, which goes from a dramatic event to a crude stop-motion esque animation with one-man sound effects. The Reveal means that this was probably intentional. Intrestingly enough, Ghost Vitruvius was entirely CG; not a live-action minifigure pasted into the movie. That's some impressive work right there.

The whole film is CG but emulates stop-motion, including the fact that it has a deliberately low frame rate. You have to look REALLY close to notice the characters doing anything that a minifig can't do, like shrugging slightly. They don't bend their legs like in, say, a Lego Adaptation Game.

The moments where everything is depicted on a much smaller brick scale with vocals for sound effects is, according to the commentary, meant to imply that they run out of money in the production and had to skimp on a few shots. While this can lead to some brilliantly unexpected takes on certain moments, like the top of the Octan Tower detaching, it can lead to some dissonance in the scene where Cloud Cuckoo Land is destroyed. invoked

When Emmet is discovered by Wyldstyle to have found the Piece of Resistance, the following exchange takes place:

Wyldstyle: You're the Special! The prophecy states that you are the most important person in the universe. That's you, right? Emmet: Uhh...yes.

Also used when Emmet is told that the Kragle might explode when paired with the Piece of Resistance. He quickly identifies the corollary: that it might not explode. Vitruvius responds with "Sure, sure, sure...let's go with that".

Take Our Word for It: After hearing Emmet's protests that he's not the Special, Bad Cop states sarcastically: "Yeah, I believe you," with his fingers making air quotes. Except he has to say he's making air quotes with his fingers because, like all mini-figures, he has no fingers.

Technician Versus Performer: The central conflict, Lord Business, The Man Upstairs and initially Emmet are technicians who seek to build according to the instructions, where as the master builders and Finn are performers who want to build their own things.

The Smart Guy: Everyone, by virtue of being Master Builders, making this role as a specialist redundant. It's more relevant that Emmet is the Not Smart Guy.

The Unchosen One: When Emmet finds the Piece of Resistance, both the good and bad guys declare he must be the Special. He wavers between insisting he's just an ordinary guy, and trying to be Special, with sad results.

The Bad Cop/Good Cop blind bag minifigurehas Good Cop's hand-drawn face, instead of his original face.

Surprisingly averted as well, considering that a TV spot even implored audience members not to give away the ending.

Midway through the movie, Batman leaves the main characters aboard the Millennium Falcon. He's not gone long, but still considering that there's a prominent scene from the trailers that hasn't happened yet, everyone knows Batman isn't really gone.

One of the promotional photos that Warner Bros. released prominently shows Ghost Vitruvius.

The Special Edition DVD box shows the group shot at the very end of the film...with Ghost Vitruvius in it.

Early press releases mentioned a lead character named Lucy. Those who watched the film having read those articles were not one bit surprised that the mystery name belonged to Wyldstyle, as her pseudonym was not used in early news for the film..

Transforming Mecha: Metalbeard can transform his massive robot body... into a copy machine.

Tropes Are Not Bad: A crowning example of this- being completely self aware the film deliciously revels in how absurd it is and the different genres it's parodying. Granted it becomes even more impressive in the ending when everything comes full circle and you realize it's just the playtime of a small boy and those genres are probably what he knows or understands from tv and movies.

True Art Is Angsty: In-Universe, Wyldstyle claims that Batman is a 'true artist' because he's dark and brooding. In addition, his song is pretty much entirely about dark places and having no parents.

Two-Faced: Bad Cop/Good Cop, with one on each side of his head that rotates to present the face needed for any given moment. Based off of the double-sided minifigure heads in sets.

Lord Business is a Control Freak who instates an oppressively conformist society incapable of original thought or diverging from directions. However, Emmet points out Octan's organization and use of instructions has let them build whole cities, whereas the Master Builders are so individualistic that they're incapable of working together. When a couple of them try to make a submarine together, they just build their own parts and stick them together, and the resulting vehicle falls apart in minutes.

All of Lord Business's criticisms about the double-decker couch are completely valid, though some of them don't apply to LEGO figurines (for example, without jointed legs, they can't hang their feet over the edge).

Walking Spoiler: Talking about the significance of "The Man Upstairs" or the person that Emmet thought of in his mind (Finn) is a sure-fire way to reveal the movie's big plot twist.

Wangst: invokedPlayed for Laughs in regards to the song that Batman wrote for Wyldstyle - it features lyrics almost entirely composed of variants of the word "darkness", but the song loses steam when he notes being really rich actually helps.

We Can Rebuild Him: Basically the backstory behind Metal Beard. Interestingly, he's the one who rebuilt himself.

Weirdness Censor: Both ways. Finn's dad doesn't notice Emmet's minifigure struggling to move under his own power, though he comes close a few times. Inversely, when Finn's dad personally starts taking apart his son's creations, the minifigures just see it as being swarmed by Micromanager robots.

All of the LEGO lands we see are perfectly made on tables with signs saying not to touch...except Cloud Cuckoo Land, which is on a small round table off in the corner.

What Measure Is a Mook?: Lord Business' minions are all robots, so the heroes don't have to feel bad about killing them. However, sometimes they seem to show individual traits and quirks, such as happily using a copy machine to print their butts. Of course, since they are both robots and Legos, it's debatable whether they die or not.

World of Badass: Despite all the robots and suppression of creativity, a world where you can build awesome stuff to help you, have specially trained builders who can all kick robot Mook ass and that everyone can make gigantic cool mechas out of everyday objects to kick your ass definitely qualifies.

Year Inside, Hour Outside: Though the characters experience the story as taking place over several years, it's established that Finn has only been playing with the LEGO for a day at the absolute most. It takes Emmet several seconds / minutes to fall through the void, but obviously less than one second for him to fall off of a table; though the story begins "8½ years" ago, Finn probably started playing only a few hours prior, if that. It's also firmly established that he created Metal Beard as well, despite his backstory taking place some time before the events of the movie.

You All Look Familiar: Considering that Emmet's default face is the standard classic LEGO smiley, this trope comes with the product. This becomes a significant plot point early on when Emmet realizes not only is he not special, he is exactly the same as everyone else, causing a Heroic BSOD thus kickstarting the events of the film. It did help him, though - it was hard to catch him because he was so bland that it was hard to track him down.

You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Vitruvius' advice to Emmet, who doesn't believe he's really The Special. Also, Wyldstyle does this to the entire LEGO universe once Lord Business starts using the Kragle, encouraging them to use their own talents to make weapons to fight back against Lord Business.

You Can't Thwart Stage One: The heroes' infiltration of Lord Business' tower to destroy the Kragle once and for all ends in disaster, and Lord Business escapes to unleash his weapon on Emmet's city.

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry: Kind of self-defeating here; Uni-Kitty's temper is so terrifying because she usually represses anything remotely negative, but at this point all that buried anger has become enough of a mess that it's probably best she just keep up with the cheery act. For everyone else's safety.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy